Plans to Refurbish Historic San Juan Home Unveiled

It has served as a post office, general store, barbershop, jail and private home, but Don Frey has another vision for the 129-year-old Verdugo Street house, one of the oldest in town.

On Wednesday, Frey and other members of the nascent Swallows Foundation unveiled plans to buy, preserve and reconvert the three-room house at 26711 Verdugo St. into a Chamber of Commerce tourism and hospitality center.

The wooden board and batten house and adjoining buildings, one of the most painted and photographed residences in the area, is in the Los Rios Historical District, across the railroad tracks from the Capistrano Depot.

Frey, a local real estate agent who recently became involved in the chamber and the San Juan Capistrano Economic Development and Hospitality Council, said he views the project as a way to get everyone in the community involved in preserving the town’s history.

“It is my desire to see us include virtually everyone who wishes to be a part of this project,” Frey said. “‘We need money. We need supplies for the rehabilitation. We need the schoolchildren, the churches, the numerous organizations and ethnic groups of our town to put their hands, efforts and sweat together in a cohesive project of which we may all be proud.”

With about $3,500 collected from the first six members of the Swallows Foundation, Frey and local mortgage loan officer Heather Hale opened escrow last week on the $215,000 property.

In the next 90 days, the foundation hopes to secure a $100,000 loan and raise the remaining funds through membership donations to close the escrow, Hale said. Another $100,000 will probably be needed to rehabilitate the property, she said. Officials hope to pay off the property within five years.

Until the Swallows Foundation receives its own independent incorporation, it is moving forward on the real estate deal under the nonprofit auspices of the San Juan Capistrano Chamber of Commerce, Hale said.

“This project is pro-business and simultaneously pro-preservation,” Hale said. “I don’t think anyone benefits from it more than the residents.”

Among those who learned more about the project was Mayor Gil Jones and Historical Society President Tony Forster, whose great-great-grandfather built the house for $1,100 in 1864.

Jones, a resident of the historic district, said the project is an “opportunity for all the diverse groups in the community who profess to really care about historic preservation.”

Originally built in Forster City, a defunct town near San Onofre, the house was moved to San Juan Capistrano and Verdugo Street in 1878. It was later bought by John Combs, town constable. In 1896, Combs suggested a new jail could be built in his back yard, a convenient place to house drunks, thieves and vagrants until they could be shipped by train to a real jail.

The jail remained in the back yard of the home until 1935. While the original building that housed the jail has been converted into a bedroom, the jail cell itself--the oldest remaining jail cell in Orange County--is still on display nearby.

The house has since been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Until recently, the property was the longtime home of Fred Sutherland and Marguerite Kennedy, who died a short time ago.